This Thursday, December 6, a total of 19 businesses in Pioneer Square will be offering unique deals to customers as part of an initiative to support local neighborhoods and their small businesses. The event is occurring in conjunction with First Thursday and offers unique deals for participants, which can be redeemed by printing and presenting your Only in Seattle coupon, only on Thursday, December 6! The deals can also be accessed through Chinook Book's free mobile app for iPhone and Android users, which will extend the offers for 30 days from the event. The businesses participating include: 1000Museums, Al Boccalino, Arundel Books, Back Alley Bike Repair, Cafe Bengodi, Cafe Paloma, Caffe Umbria, Delicatus, Foxycut Salon, Glasshouse Studio, Grand Central Bakery & Cafe, Intrigue Chocolate Co., Klondike Penny's Old Time Portrait Studio, Laguna Pottery,Marcela's Creole Cookery, Pioneer Pet, Smith Tower Observation Deck, Temple Billiards, and The Globe Bookstore.

This week's episode of Art Zone with Nancy Guppy will feature music from Campfire Ok. Filmmaker and photographer Rodrigo Valenzuela will be profiled, the artistic team of Lilienthal/Zamora takes on the Frye, and choreographer and dancer KT Niehoff unveils "Raucous Bacchus," the fourth installment in her year-long project, "Collission Theory."

On Wednesday, December 12, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce will host a free luncheon round-table discussion focusing on the Arts. City Council President Sally Clark will address the unique challenges and needs of the Arts and Entertainment Industry, inviting input from insiders' perspectives. This is a unique opportunity to speak directly and informally with the Council President about what success means for your business.

The Vera Project will launch two new multi-class courses in January 2013. The new six-class Writing About Music course will occur once a semester and will accept up to 12 students of all ages and backgrounds. The lead instructor is Mark Baumgarten, author and editor-at-large for City Arts Magazine. In addition, a regular four-class workshop on DJ'ing will be offered. The lead instructor is Ty Finnan, an experienced DJ who will instruct the course with equipment and software provided through a new partnership with Guitar Center. The Vera Project is committed to providing accessible education and is able to provide payment options or scholarship on an as-needed basis.

The Annual Pound Holiday Open Studios will occur on Friday, December 7 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at Pound Studios, 1216 Tenth Avenue. There will be many studios open to explore and a diverse representation of musicians, filmmakers, crafts, people, tattoo artists, and artists. The Northwest Harvest will have a food drive barrel for non-perishable food items for donation.

FREE PUBLIC SCREENING OF 'THEY LOOK RIGHT THROUGH YOU' AND 'EDIBLE ROCKS'

Tess Martin, a local independent animator who works with back-lit paper cut-outs, ink, paint, and sand, will be previewing her new 9-minute animated short They Look Right Through You at the Northwest Film Forum on December 19. The screening is free to the public and will begin at 6:00 p.m. In addition, the event includes a screening of Stefan Gruber's new 3-minute short Edible Rocks. Audience members are invited to stay for a Q&A session.

Seattle-based Lucid Inc. announced their documentary The Roper has been accepted into the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Last week, The Roper won Best Documentary and Best Cinematography awards at the One Club One Screen Awards in New York, and was named a finalist in One Club's One Show Interactive. Lucid Inc. was founded as equal parts documentary film and advertising. The Roper was produced as an edition in the ongoing short documentary film collection called Meet Me Here.

Last month, Highline Music4Life presented 15 new guitars and 30 new ukuleles to Superintendent Susan Enfield at the Des Moines Rotary luncheon. In addition, 30 instruments have also been repaired and delivered to Highline Schools this fall (marking 130 total instruments delivered to music teachers since the program's start). In Shoreline, over 30 instruments are being repaired for low-income Shoreline students. The Shoreline program is being sponsored, in part, by the Rotary Club of Shoreline and Shoreline Breakfast Rotary this year. Seattle Music4Life has purchased and will deliver two sets of 120 recorders each to Emerson Elementary and Broadview-Thomson K-8. Additionally, over 30 instruments have been donated to support Seattle Public Schools.

Starbucks, KEXP and Seattle Theatre Group (STG) welcome the return of their Little Big Show series in 2013. This will mark their fifth concert in the series and will feature The Walkmen and Father John Misty with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting Seattle's Youth in Focus organization. The after school program uses intensive photography training as a tool to help disadvantaged teens develop personal voice, positive identity, social skills and artistic skills, offering free, multi-level classes for teens ages 13-19 in both film and digital photography.

Kickstarter is an online "crowd-funding" resource that helps musicians, filmmakers and producers of artistic projects reach out to friends and fans for financial support. Kickstarter allows artists the opportunity to give back to funders with special rewards, such as an exclusive album pre-release, a producer credit in a film, or even getting to meet the artist in person. Seattle is a hotbed for film and music projects, and you can be a pivotal part of the production process by backing a project and spreading the word. Current Seattle-based Kickstarter projects are listed below, in order of imminence, from soonest-ending project to furthest out. Click on the Kickstarter buttons to check out these local projects and discover even more happening around Seattle.

A feature-length, science-fiction, action-adventure movie with 774 visual effects made by over 250 volunteers.

Why Kickstarter and not IndieGoGo?

The overwhelming basis for promoting Kickstarter as a project fundraiser stems from the tool's clear and complete structure. It is a system that ensures artists approach each and every venture with a comprehensive business plan. The debatable result, wherein artists may or may not keep the funds they raise based on whether or not their project is funded fully, interests us because it protects project backers. IndieGoGo, although a great money-generating platform, does not provide the same level of investor protection when projects go by the wayside. At least for the time being, our office has decided to continue supporting Kickstarter.

The documentary film Bringing Light was named one of 20 finalists for the Sundance Film Festival's Focus Film Forward competition. If enough fans visit Sundance's website and vote to make the documentary an audience favorite, it will be screened during the film festival next month. The film is about Seattle Dr. James Olson's work to help neurosurgeons more precisely see brain tumors. Olson works at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and worked with experts at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital to develop Tumor Paint, a molecule that illuminates brain tumors to distinguish cancerous cells from normal tissue.

NBC has green-lit another singing show called The Winner Is, to be hosted by Nick Lachey. This singing show differs from others in that it's a game show involving duels, negotiations, and brackets. The winner receives a $1 million cash prize. There will be an open call in Seattle on Saturday, December 8 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Hard Rock Café, 116 Pike Street. The producers say they are looking for the entire spectrum of performers including groups, single singers, a capella groups, cabaret groups, high school choruses, or anyone else with a beautiful voice.

The films Singles and the Fabulous Baker Boys both gave movie-goers memorable vignettes of life in Seattle. And while the portraits varied widely, one thing the movies had in common was this: Both has their characters trekking way too far for where they needed to be, all in the name of scenery. With the guidance of Mike Seely's encyclopedic knowledge of both the movies and Seattle geography, these maps are best bets at the routes taken by Jack Baker in the Fabulous Baker Boys and by Debbie Hunt in Singles.

Local classical musicians Ruth Mar and Brooks Tran wanted to find a way for music and community to converge. The result was the Parnassus Project, an ensemble that marries chamber music with café culture. Since its inaugural concert in the spring, the Parnassus Project has been spotted playing at coffee shops, a tavern, a bookstore, a library, and a farmers market. The group now has ten core members and a rotating roster of players.

As promised, Seattle-based on-demand music service Rhapsody launched its Xbox Live app yesterday. The service is available for current Rhapsody subscribers and Xbox Live Gold members. The app integrates voice commands and gestures with the Kinect. It's also been designed to match the Xbox user interface and looks quite similar to the Xbox music app. "Many families will be gathering around their Xbox this holiday season, and this year, Rhapsody can provide the soundtrack to those memories," vice president of business development Brian McGarvey said. "People talk about social music as something that happens online, but there's no better place to share music than with family and friends at home, especially this time of year."

Two years ago, the movie Elf was adapted for Broadway and transformed into a big-budget, family-friendly extravaganza. This month, the first regional production of Elf: The Musical opens at the

5th Avenue Theatre. Seattle-born Matt Owen stars as Buddy, the irrepressible human elf. He answered questions during his first week of rehearsals about his study of the film and how the film differs from the musical adaptation.